Become a Fan

04 April 2011

teaching. baking, manners, accountability, cleanliness, efficiency.

kitchens are never just about cooking. they are communities, cities, families, gangs, partnerships, cities, empires, kingdoms, islands, homes, churches, refuges, prisons, forests. schools of fish could teach us a thing or two.

no one goes to work amongst their brethren just because. we all seek more than money when we sign up to be employed. for those of us who appreciate someone else besides ourselves signing said paycheck, we give and get something from working for others, with others.

I worked my first 80+ hour work week before the age of 16. I come from a family of non-retiring people. I like working. I don't feel like I'm working [very hard] unless my job is physical.

people ask me when did I {know I wanted to} want to be a chef. never. not once was being a chef my goal. I wanted to cook professionally nearabout 1991 and when I began, I had reached my goal.

unbeknownst to me, I had been preparing and was prepared to work in kitchens well before I stepped foot into one. although I didn't know the vernacular ['all day what?'], and owned not a single knife, many bosses and supervisors had trained me to shut up, suit up, and show up no matter what was going on in the rest of my life. being a latch-key kid meant knowing that I had only me to clean up the house & real life messes I made. no one ever grounded me but I spent a lot of nights in public parks. I started washing dishes in grade school and was cleaning the whole apartment by Junior High. my mother worked at home & I learned how to answer the phone politely & take a detailed message.

or you can wait until you're in your 20's and have some chef kick the shit out of you, every day, until it's learned into you. engraved. carved. branded.

I don't care if you work in a Michelin rated restaurant or a 20 seat lunch counter, these words will help you in kitchen as in life.

a little of any of these goes for miles in dog years.reliability. accountability. cleanliness. humility. manners. efficiency.

a chef I worked with once used to say, "You have to be able to go to bed with yourself at night." in other words: where is your fucking integrity?

esteemable acts build self esteem.

nothing else. no bling, no sex, no person, no awards, no TV spots, no stock options, no trust fund, no purebred dog, no wedding in East Hampton, no name in bright lights, no knives named after you, no resume,

because when you're a cook among cooks, it's a god damned verb. we cook. action. active. constant. repeat.

c r a f t.

we cooks respect the now. we don't care where you've been, who you've fucked, how many hours you worked at your last job, where your scars come from, what the NY Times said about you, what your jacket's been embroidered with, how much French you speak, how many varietals of mushrooms you know, what you think of sea salt, how many farms you've visited, where you started, how long you've been doing it.

cooks watch. cooks listen.

how elegant are you on the line? is every plate the same? at what point will you break and start cutting corners? are you cleaner, faster, more efficient than me?

how about your manners? do you kiss certain people's ass and talk shit behind another's? do you say hello to everyone by name when you walk in the door? do you shake everyone's hand regardless of position? do you wait until someone asks you for help before giving it freely? when your fellows are in the weeds do you jump in to help? do you know how to listen with more than your ears? do you thank the people who have helped you? when you give notice are you graceful?

kitchens are old school. they're not necessarily democracies, even if the government they've grown up in is. the manners chefs in most kitchens expect might be considered 'old fashioned.' I say it's better to err on old fashioned. few people will fault you for saying 'please,' 'thank you,' and 'Yes, Chef.' most chefs don't want to hear what you think or even have time for a discussion when they're correcting or talking to you. if you think you know better, do better. if you think you can do better, what the fuck are you waiting for? if you made a mistake, be grateful your chef noticed, take [immediate!] heed, move on. if you're sure you know better than your chef, you're in the wrong fucking kitchen-- leave and go where the chef knows more than you or become a sous chef so you can feel the pleasure of constantly being wedged between a rock & a harder place.

even if you're front of house.especially if you're front of house.

the chefs are considered the parents of the house, even if they don't pay the mortgage.

you think that when you become a chef it will be all about cooking. all about baking. all about food. you and the meditation of kitchen. but once you become someone responsible for humans and not just carrots, the game changes forever. carrots don't braise themselves. cakes don't rise because you hope they will. all those burgers don't get to temp at the wave of your expert hand.

and it's not just chefs who are 'in charge of' cooks. cooks need to be in charge of themselves. they need to go to bed with themselves at night. cooks need to rely on one another. cooks need to speak to and with one another. they need to watch and listen and learn who are the good ones amongst them all. stick with the winners is what I say. cooks need to work next to, with, alongside their prep staff. a chef du partie is only as good as her commis. a commis is only as good as his chef du partie.

because what you learn in the kitchen, what you learn on the floor: when that person who has been around your block a few more times than you, takes the time to pass on their experience, pass on a few words of encouragement/critique/acknowledgement/compliment/admonishment, they're doing it for the you of you, not merely the you of the numbers on your paycheck.

listen and use these words, these exercises, these lessons, these challenges/growing opportunities to water your integrity, to nourish your self esteem, to honor humility, to pay homage to your craft. use these exercises, these lessons, these challenges/growing opportunities to the betterment of your kitchen, you, your goals, and whomever you choose to pass them onto next.

for these are not merely kitchen lessons, these are life lessons.

keep them as clean and as sharp as your knives, and they will never steer you wrong.

Wonder where you have been lately, great post. Chefs are born, not made and the lessons I learned in the kitchens serve me well in every non Chef job I have had since. Showing up is a lesson everyone need to learn. Thank you

Mark Mendez, until recently the Executive Chef at Carnivale in Chicago, linked to this post in Facebook saying, "Read this, learn, repeat". It is one of the clearest descriptions of what cooks do I have ever read. I read several more of your posts, and they helped me clarify things I had noticed but not completely understood about the restaurant where I work. I think I understand better now what I owe my chef and what my chef owes me. I will change and I will grow.

You end one post saying, "If you can't make a difference, who can?"
People you will never know read your words, and they make a difference. Thank you.

I do not twitter so here is the answer to your question...I worked in 6 kitchens and in all there were almost daily fights among workers, mostly about ego and mine is bigger than yours stuff. I did see a few fist fights but no one got hurt.

SFL: pls understand if I dont' address you as Chef - I don't work for you.

I've followed your blog for a number of years now, and posts like this one leave me with very mixed feelings. "Hard to tell" as your tag has it. Hope you are up for someone engaging critically with your thoughts.

9/10 of what you say makes me want to sign on with you. Estimable acts as the basis for deserved self-respect. "Reliability. Accountability. Cleanliness. Humility. Manners. Efficiency." Yes to these as "life lessons."

But maybe you entangle qualities that have moral virtue with those that are just necessary for success in a dirty business. You know it's a dirty business, don't you? It would not involve the exploitation of so many of us if it weren't. The fact that there are always more begging at the door to get in doesn't mean it isn't so. Whether as a manager or a grunt, WHY defend military-style virtues (shut up and suck it up). As necessary and unavoidable, perhaps. As desirable - I don't see it. There's a tinge of sadism in it all. I've read many many of your posts, and wondered every now and then why the humanist in you is so invested in kicking butt. When your boss - or you, as boss - demands "humility," it's usually a code word for complicity in letting yourself be exploited.

Do you, or does anyone else in your readership, get what I mean? Where does the drill sergeant in you come from, and why do you embrace her so heartily?

Please do not take this as disrespect; if I didn't respect, I wouldn't take the time to comment.

Hello Art, This is an excellent question! One I ask myself quite a bit these days. In some ways I feel I have blogged a lot in 5+ years and now I am focusing on my kitchen and my team and continuing to build a restaurant that has not yet been around for a year. In another way I feel it might be time to write something 'in paper.' Thank you for liking eggbeater enough to want more. It's appreciated! ~ Shuna

I am happy to see your note above~ I was concerned. You know how stress takes it's toll on the body and I was hoping nothing serious had happened to you. It's like getting a card or note every week from a loved one for a long time, and then nothing for a while- we get worried :)

YES!!! Love love love. I work with a lot of green cooks, cooks that know no humility, who think they are at the top of their game, so this resonates with me and I will be taking this to work. There are people who can cook well, then there are people who are good cooks. This helps describe the difference between the two. Thank you so much for your inspiring, insightful, well-written words.

Hope you post more Shuna! Saw you recently on Unique Sweets and thought of eggbeater again. I'll be going through your archives as per usual to help me make some important decisions. Thanks for all the posts.

this is in response to chris. he wrote about "the dirty business". I worked at a bakery that wanted me to do 3o items a day in 30 hours a week. I loved it. My stuff came out great, business increased so my hours did too, but the owner hated that.

The chef at the place was incredible. I did every thing he said. since I know more about pastry than he, he did he did everything I said. mutual respect. yes, I became obsessed, yes, I worked all the time and when I was out trying to spend time with my family I was thinking of pastry, yes I worked until I could barely move yes, it might be a little sadistic, but chef and I were having soooo much fun! We (or at least I)felt that we were doing something important.

I love food! its not that I like to eat food, I actually eat a lot of crap usually standing up, but it about creating something that when people put it in their mouths it makes them stop and feel and taste and breath. Its not about you or even chef, its about the team. one cannot do that without help. its a giant machine of mostly emotional, dramatic people. the good news is one cannot take the abuse for long so we move on then find a great place that appreciates our obsessive, behavior one does not choose this business it chooses you!